July: Day 10: Teaching 2:
The Placing of the Honorable Robe of the Lord in the Royal City Moscow
(On the Meaning of the Sufferings of Christ)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. Today, the Holy Church commemorates the bringing of the Lord's robe to Moscow and its placement. In 1624, Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, being on good terms with Abbas, the Shah of Persia, sent ambassadors Vorobyin and Kuvshinov to him. The Shah, having conquered Iberia, was returning victorious. Upon receiving the ambassadors, he spoke to them of his intention – to send the robe of the Savior, which he had found in the treasury of a certain church, to the Russian sovereign. The ambassadors reported this to the Tsar and the Patriarch, who were uncertain of how to respond; meanwhile, the Shah's envoy Irusambek arrived in Moscow with many gifts and a letter. First of all, he presented the Patriarch Philaret with a golden box adorned with precious stones. Within it was enclosed the Lord's robe. The Patriarch received it with honor, yet he himself was perplexed about how to regard the received gift, and thus convened a synod, at which Nektarios, the Archbishop of Vologda, communicated the following: "During his diaconate under the Patriarch of Constantinople, he was obliged to be in Iberia. There, in one church, he noticed burning lamps at a pillar on the right side and inquired about this from the priests. They replied that there was the Chiton of Christ and recounted its history: after the Crucifixion of the Savior, when soldiers cast lots for His garments, it was awarded to a soldier from the Iberian land. That man brought it back to his homeland and gifted it to his sister, with whom, according to her wish, the robe was buried." Soon a tree grew over her grave, from which fragrant myrrh flowed. During the reign of Constantine the Great, in 342 AD, a church was built here, and a bishopric was established in Iberia. However, during the Persian rule, both the tree and the temple disappeared, and what happened to the chiton remains unknown. When the question of the authenticity of the vestments was not resolved at the synod, a fast was appointed, after which Metropolitan Cyprian, by order of the Patriarch, placed the brought vestment upon the sick: all the sick were healed – and everyone was convinced of its sanctity, which was later transferred to the Dormition Cathedral and placed in a specially arranged room, in the corner, on the west side of the cathedral.
